Bette & Joan: The Divine Feud

This joint biography of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford follows Hollywood's most epic rivalry throughout their careers. They only worked together once, in the classic spine-chiller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, and their violent hatred of each other as rival sisters was no act. In real life they fought over as many men as they did film roles.

Bette Davis: A Biography

She was the tempestuous, strong-willed woman who ignited the movie screen with her legendary performances in Of Human Bondage, Jezebel, and All About Eve. Off-camera, Bette Davis survived four disastrous marriages and earned a larger-than-life professional reputation as an actress to be reckoned with. In this extraordinary biography, fans and film historians will discover a different, darker side of Bette Davis: a woman beset with scarring personal and professional doubts....

A Portrait of Joan: The Autobiography of Joan Crawford

It starts with a telegram. MGM wires young Lucille LeSueur to tell her that she's been placed under contract at a princely $75 a week, and is expected to report immediately to Hollywood, California. A fresh-faced 17-year-old with big eyes and an air of elegance, she would go on to become one of the greatest stars in Hollywood history: the fabulous Joan Crawford. Through four marriages, countless cocktail parties and more than 100 appearances in film and television, Joan lived the life of a legend from the first day she stepped onto the back lot.

My Way of Life

An incredible recording of Joan Crawford reading her book, My Way of Life. Originally recorded in 1973, it was recently remastered from the original LP records. Hear the unabridged edition performed by the one and only Joan Crawford.

Lucy and Desi: The Legendary Love Story of Television's Most Famous Couple

After eight years on the air, Desi Arnaz did not love Lucy any more. On screen, they were dynamite, a comedy pairing more successful than any Hollywood had ever produced. But when the cameras stopped rolling, they fought, screamed and threatened each other more each season. Finally, an argument in Desi's production office turned violent. Lucy hurled a cocktail glass past his head, and Desi demanded a divorce. He moved out that night. After nearly 20 years, America's favorite couple was finished.

The Purple Diaries: Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930s

1936 was a great year for the movie industry - the financial setbacks of the Great Depression were subsiding, so theater attendance was up. Americans everywhere were watching the stars, and few stars shined as brightly as one of America's most enduring screen favorites, Mary Astor. But Astor's personal story wasn't a happy one. Born poor and widowed at 24, Mary Astor had spent years looking for stability when she met and wed Dr. Franklyn Thorpe.

Judy and I: My Life with Judy Garland

The third of Judy Garland's five husbands, Sid Luft was the one man in her life who stuck around. He was chiefly responsible for the final act of Judy's meteoric comeback after she was unceremoniously booted off the MGM lot: he produced her iconic, Oscar-nominated vehicle A Star Is Born and expertly shaped her concert career.

The Life of Joan Crawford: American Legends

The life of Joan Crawford is one of the most famous Hollywood rags-to-riches tales. While it is common to think of Hollywood as a land offering great opportunity to hardworking actresses, the Horatio Alger myth rarely applies in reality, but it applied almost perfectly to Joan Crawford. Joan Crawford's life and career also shed light on the treatment of women in pop culture and in cinema during the early 20th century. Her career was not only limited to film acting, as she acted in musical revues and was previously an unabashed flapper during the Roaring Twenties.

Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood

By 1920, the movies had suddenly become America's new favorite pastime and one of the nation's largest industries. Never before had a medium possessed such power to influence; yet Hollywood's glittering ascendancy was threatened by a string of headline-grabbing tragedies - including the murder of William Desmond Taylor, the popular president of the Motion Picture Directors Association, a legendary crime that has remained unsolved until now.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

The neighbors all whisper about the two sisters who live on the hill: It's Blanche Hudson who lives in that house, you know. The Blanche Hudson, who starred in big Hollywood films all those years ago. Such a shame her career ended so early, all because of that accident. They say it was her sister, Jane, who did it - that she crashed the car because she was drunk. They say that's why she looks after Blanche now, because of the guilt. That's what they say, at least.

I Loved Her in the Movies: Memories of Hollywood's Legendary Actresses

In a career that has spanned more than 60 years, Robert Wagner has witnessed the twilight of the Golden Age of Hollywood and the rise of television, becoming a beloved star in both media. During that time he became acquainted, both professionally and socially, with the remarkable women who were the greatest screen personalities of their day. I Loved Her in the Movies is his intimate and revealing account of the charisma of these women on film, why they became stars, and more.

Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night

In a career spanning more than 30 years, David Letterman redefined the modern talk show with an ironic comic style that transcended traditional television. While he remains one of the most famous stars in America, he is a remote, even reclusive figure whose career is widely misunderstood. In Letterman, Jason Zinoman, the first comedy critic in the history of the New York Times, mixes groundbreaking reporting with unprecedented access and probing critical analysis to explain the unique entertainer's titanic legacy.

Queen Victoria's Granddaughters: 1860-1918

On 6 July 1868, when told of the birth of her seventh granddaughter, Queen Victoria remarked that the news was "a very uninteresting thing for it seems to me to go on like the rabbits in Windsor Park". Her apathy was understandable - this was her 14th grandchild, and, though she had given birth to nine children, she had never been fond of babies, viewing them as "frog-like and rather disgusting...particularly when undressed".

Son of a Grifter: The Twisted Tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes, the Most Notorious Con Artists in America: A Memoir by the Other Son

In 1988 a troubled young man and his flamboyant mother were arrested for murdering a wealthy widow in her New York City mansion. Suddenly America was transfixed by a pair of real-life film noir characters. The media couldn't get enough of the twisted relationship between Sante Kimes and her 23-year-old son Kenny. But the most chilling story of all was never told - until now. Kent Walker, Sante's elder son, reveals how he survived 40 years of "the Dragon Lady's" very special brand of motherly love and still managed to get away.

American Legends: The Life of Bette Davis

Bette Davis presided over Hollywood at a time in which the film industry was at its most influential. Every actress, from Katharine Hepburn to Ingrid Bergman and Ginger Rodgers, themselves now considered among Hollywood's greatest icons, lived in the shadow of Bette Davis.

High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic

It's one of the most revered movies of Hollywood's golden era. Starring screen legend Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in her first significant film role, High Noon was shot on a lean budget over just 32 days but achieved instant box-office and critical success. It won four Academy Awards in 1953, including a best actor win for Cooper. And it became a cultural touchstone, often cited by politicians as a favourite film, celebrating moral fortitude.

Six Tudor Queens: Katherine of Aragon, the True Queen

The lives of Henry VIII's queens make for dramatic stories, and Alison Weir writes a series of novels that offer insights into the real lives of the six wives based on extensive research and new theories. In all the romancing, has anyone regarded the evidence that Anne Boleyn did not love Henry VIII? Or that Prince Arthur, Katherine of Aragon's first husband, who is said to have loved her, in fact cared so little for her that he willed his personal effects to his sister?

My Life So Far

She is one of the most recognizable women of our time. America knows Jane Fonda as an actress and an activist, a feminist and a wife, a workout guru and a role model. Now, in this extraordinary memoir, Fonda reveals that she is so much more. From her youth among Hollywood's elite and her early film career to the challenges and triumphs of her life today, Jane Fonda reveals intimate details and universal truths.

Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations

This wickedly candid memoir that Ava Gardner dared not publish during her lifetime offers a revealing self-portrait of the film legend's life and loves in Hollywood's golden age. Ava Gardner was one of Hollywood's great stars during the 1940s and '50s, an Oscar-nominated leading lady who co-starred with Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, and Humphrey Bogart, among others. But this riveting account of her storied life and career had to wait for publication until after her death, so concerned was Gardner with its frankness.

Robert Redford: The Biography

Among the most widely admired Hollywood stars of his generation, Redford has appeared onstage and on-screen, in front of and behind the camera, earning Academy, Golden Globe, and a multitude of other awards and nominations for acting, directing, and producing, and for his contributions to the arts. His Sundance Film Festival transformed the world of filmmaking; his films defined a generation.

The Secrets of My Life: A History

The book will cover Caitlyn Jenner's childhood as Bruce Jenner and rise to fame as a gold-medal-winning Olympic decathlete; her marriages and her relationships with her children; her transition; and her experience as the world's most famous transgender woman.

Marilyn Monroe: The Biography

Fifty years after her death, Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe still beguiles the world, her image enthralling millions. Many books have attempted to explain her allure and tell her story, but none has succeeded as well as this work by acclaimed biographer Donald Spoto. Spoto’s exhaustive research uncovers a conspiracy of silence, allowing him to present the facts, free from often-repeated myths and speculation. Granted access to more than thirty-five thousand pages of formerly sealed files containing letters, diaries, appointment books, and other intimate papers, he also interviewed nearly two hundred people who had never before spoken on record.

Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor

The life of Princess May of Teck is one of the great Cinderella stories in history. From a family of impoverished nobility, she was chosen by Queen Victoria as the bride for her eldest grandson, the scandalous Duke of Clarence, heir to the throne, who died mysteriously before their marriage. Despite this setback, she became queen, mother of two kings, grandmother of the current queen, and a lasting symbol of the majesty of the British throne.

Without Mercy: Obsession and Murder Under the Influence

On any Sunday morning in the Florida Redlands, Dee Casteel might have served you pancakes at the IHOP. She was a hard-working, cheerful waitress, one of the nicest people you'd ever want to know. She was also a three-bottle-a-day alcoholic, hopelessly in love with the IHOP's manager, Allen Bryant. Bryant wanted his live-in lover, IHOP owner Art Venecia, dead. And Dee Casteel helped him to arrange it.

Publisher's Summary

She was beautiful, talented, irascible, ruthless, vulnerable, and a true Hollywood legend. From abused child to dance-hall entertainer to silent-film actress, she went on to become one of Hollywood's screen goddesses with films such as Possessed opposite Clark Gable, with whom she began a torrid off-screen affair; Grand Hotel; and Mildred Pierce, her Academy Award-winning film. Joan Crawford succeeded and survived through sheer determination, talent, invention, and re-invention.

Now, Charlotte Chandler, the acclaimed biographer of Ingrid Bergman (Ingrid), Bette Davis (The Girl Who Walked Home Alone), and Groucho Marx (Hello, I Must Be Going), gives us a revealing and often surprising portrait of Joan Crawford, much of it in Joan Crawford's own words.

I'm not sure what this biography adds to the Crawford mystique, but for my money it doesn't add anything. The author stuffed the book with unnecessary facts and descriptions of Crawford's films for no apparent reason (other than to pad the skimpy book). There's not a single fact or insight that hasn't been made before (and better!). And the pretentious narration left me confused: no change of inflection, no attempt to differentiate one character from another, the narrator sounds as if she's reading a papal encylical and with all the passion of an accountant. Bad all around.

It is difficult to decide which element of the reading of this book is worse. The book itself is repetitive, biased, and poorly written. On the other hand, the reader's false, "Joan Crawford" voice is irritating beyond belief. Any half rate female impersonator would have been better.

Whether the content written by author Chandler is true or not, I find it appalling that the narrator appears to have prepared less than adequately for her performance. She pronounces a number of names incorrectly, such as Charles Boyer (pronounced "Boi-yuhr", as opposed to the expected "Boi-yay") and Jack Palance (Pa-LANCE instead of the correct PAL-ance). There is a deliberate pacing that could be admirable until I positively cringe with such pronunciation errors.

Yes, the narrator has an affected way of speaking and mispronounces basic movie names (Joseph Mankiewicz as Man KEE a WITZ), and yes the plot summaries are unnecessary and substitute for more substantive details about Crawford's life. Still, this gives a good picture of Crawford's marriage to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., with extensive interviews, and you get used to the narrator after a while. The story is compelling despite these flaws.

This was a good retort to the negative book that her eldest daughter cowardly wrote and published after Joan's death. I say Cowardly, since Joan wasn't here to defend herself. It just was not fair. I'm not saying she was perfect, just that it wasn't fair. And If you like this book, you should get "Portrait" of Joan Crawford. After all, she was considered the best actress of all time.